Poets, scientists, students share ideas at TEDxUGA

From poet to virologist, computer scientist to business executive, 17 people and groups shared ideas and performance at the University of Georgia's second annual "TEDxUGA" event.

Modeled after the popular TED Talks, the five-hour event brought 400 or so people to the UGA Tate Student Center's Grand Hall Friday afternoon to hear the speakers and performers, then share their own ideas and impressions.

The idea is to share ideas worth sharing, said UGA journalism professor Scott Shamp, the moderator of the event.

Poet Megan Pendleton, one of the crowd favorites, shared some of her poetry, along with some advice from a teacher she once had: "Write what you fear most," he said.

"Let me bake you a love that won't fall in the middle," said Pendleton, a UGA graduate student performing what she wrote, and later, "We are priceless, regardless of the gods from which we ask forgiveness."

Lindsey Cook, a UGA senior studying journalism, computer science and new media, talked about what it was like to be the only woman in a computer science class of 100, and why we need to rethink our attitude toward the word "feminist."

Only one in five people will admit to being a feminist, but that's because of the weird associations we've come to have with that word, she said.

"Do you believe women are equal to men?" She asked. "If your answer is yes, you are a feminist," because that's what the word means, she said.

"The problem women have today is not ability, but confidence," and that matters, Cook said: Often confidence in one's ability is a better predictor of success than actual ability, said Cook, who asked both men and women in the audience to help instill that confidence.

Farah Samli, who spent her early childhood in Peshawar, Pakistan, showed a photo of her with family friends and their prize water buffalo, highly important both symbolically and economically to a family in that part of the world.

"In many countries, having a water buffalo is a game-changer," reflecting status and family stability, she explained.

"What if your family future were tied to its health?" she asked.

Samli, whose father worked for the federal Drug Enforcement Agency in Pakistan, has now come full circle in a way. She's a UGA graduate student working on ways to make vaccines more stable to protect the health not only of water buffaloes and other animals, but people.

David Barbe, music producer and UGA faculty member, talked about making a living and doing what you love to do.

Concentrate on process, not results, he said, invoking legendary basketball coach John Wooden, who figured the score would take care of itself if his teams just executed properly.

But sometimes it's hard, he admitted. When Barbe was a young father, business was not so good for a stretch and he considered abandoning his career in music production.

He expected his own father to say something like, "That's good. It's time you grew up and faced the facts." But his father surprised him.

"Don't be hasty. Give it another year," his father said. Barbe did, and opportunities came.

"The more I did what I loved, the better I got at it," he said.

We have all been asked, and ourselves ask in turn, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"